There are countless reasons why dancing (in any form) is something you should have in your life. But there is something special about Zouk – something that captivates the soul. So, here are 6 reasons you should dance Zouk:
1. The Music.
It can be everything from hypnotic to hip-hop, trance to lyrical. No matter what your flavour, you can connect to the music. I will never forget the first time that I walked into a Zouk social – it was a whole different world from the Salsa/Bachata flavours I had experienced before. There is something primal in the Zouk rhythm; something that grabs you, pulls you in, and won’t let go. The feeling burns into your veins and relaxes your mind. It is a music you can completely surrender to.
2. The People
Every dance community feels that their genre’s community is the greatest, and every community deserves to feel that way. But, for me, the bonds I have created through Zouk are rarely rivaled. Especially in North America, the Zouk community is very small and very close. There’s drama, sure, and some groups who don’t play nice with others, but on a whole the people who social dance Zouk are open in so many ways. They open their homes and their hearts, taking in people who they barely know in real life for a weekend or a week. They drive each other home late at night, and check to make sure everyone has a way home after a long night. And, above all, they are passionate. Passionate in dance, as they are in life. Hungry to learn, and hungry for new experiences. I hope they always remain this way: committed to growth in dance and in life.
3. The Flow.
Every dance has its own unique flavour, and each is distinctly different. However, the pulsating flow in Zouk is unlike any other dance. Even Kizomba, which shares similar music, cannot hope to capture the flowing sensuality and grace of Zouk. It is a dance of expression, of passion, and of openness to the world. The movements of Zouk tell a story: there is a proneness in the tilted movements, and a trust that your partner will be there for you at all times. For many dancers, the flow is the single most addictive part of Zouk dancing.
4. The Creativity
Zouk can be an extremely unstructured dance form. With its roots touching multiple styles, including contemporary, Zouk is open to a large amount of contact improvisation. There is no ‘beat’ that must always be followed; dancers are free to speed or slow the dance to whatever tempo they feel inspired to match.
The willingness of DJ’s to manipulate and create Zouk songs from multiple genres means that the range of emotion and feeling Zouk can portray is almost limitless! Even better: many non-Zouk songs are still perfectly capable of being used to create amazing Zouk dances. For the creative, Zouk provides an ideal mixture of movement, athleticism, creativity, and improvisation in dance.
5. The Connection
Most dances work from an upright position, with the connection never tilting into a sideways “3rd dimension”. They may be great connections, but those dances lack the entire body connection of Zouk. Even dances that connect through the body, like Tango and Kizomba, do not often take advantage of that other dimension. In Zouk, the body connection demands that you follow your partner in whatever direction. It is fluid, but solid; holds you close, but creates distance when necessary. I can think of no other dance where I feel so taken care of by the lead, yet still so free to express my own body.
6. It’s good for you
This one is not exclusive to Zouk, but some benefits of social dancing may be emphasized by the athletic nature of this dance. In Zouk, the tilted nature of many of the movements demands a greater engagement of the core, balance and orientation. Our dips, drops and cambre’s similarly demand core and leg strength. Many of the common Zouk social movements cannot be executed with a base amount of athleticism. For newcomers into the dance, repeated exposure to these movements can build core, balance, and leg strength quite seriously.
What are some of the reasons you dance Zouk? Leave your comments below.
Great article, I love the section on flow and flexibility in music. Thank you!
Thank you, James
Zouk is an ever expanding language of complexities between two people. When you are both trying to communicate and interpret an idea and create a new expression there is total exhileration, regardless o success or failure.
When the son finishes and you look at each other from outside the dance, and you just smile, or laugh… Hug one another with such joy and thank one another, you both know that the encounter was relational and personal and that conversation cannot be shared with anyone else. It us yours and yours alone.
I also believe that once you learn Zouk technique properly, it greatly improves your dance skills in other styles as well, due to a higher sensitivity to connections.
“There is no ‘beat’ that must always be followed; dancers are free to speed or slow the dance to whatever tempo they feel inspired to match.”
Me i would be very carefull with statements like this. Zouk has a clear basic step, which makes up the flow and characteristics of this dance. Sure you have the freedom to break it once in a while (if it still fits the music). But to be very clear, before you start breaking the basics, you should master the basics. Don’t get me wrong, i love to improvise and use contact impro, contemporary or whatever feel right to me. But i stay with the basics most of the time.
Zouk is not pure freedom, Zouk is a set of very strict rules (basics), which in the end allow us to reach even greater freedom, as these rules provide the foundation we need to build our fantastic, innovative and personalized Skyscrapers ;)))
Apart from what i added, indeed a great article! I like the part about the flow and the connection :)))
I understand what you are saying. It is definitely true that the basics must be mastered *first* before playing with rhythm, but one of my favourite things about Zouk is that I am not held hostage to the ‘Slow – Quick – Quick’ and have room to do Zouk to alternative timings.
Learn the rules like a Pro, so you can break them as an Artist <3
totally agree, the flow and connection are unmatched. however, i think there are things that can be improved in zouk:
– styling, we can learn a lot about precision, technique and styling from tango. this is a much more detailed dance. sometimes zouk looks way too sloppy and rough.
– safety, because zouk is a dance with special techniques like hairmovements (NOT head movements!!!!!), derived from lambada, i see very often techniques are executed in a terribly unsafe way. this applies as well for tilted movements as for dips and cambrés. Teachers are not very well trained in this and copy from youtube.
– identity, because it is such a mix we are losing identity. no, zouk is not contact impro. it is called zouk bcse brazilians started dancing lambada to zouk music. so actually we still dance lambada, and fusions with lambada, to zouk music and zouk-a-like music. sometimes we dance it to what we call neo-zouk (pop with a zouk-beat), dubstep, and other stuff, sometimes with and sometimes without zouk-beat. BUT the main denominator is the beat. Zouk-beat. lyrical and contact are just cherry’s on the cake, not the cake itself. many dancers just dance the “TUM” and forget about the rest, calling it “my personal interpretation. rubbish.
– structure, zouk in itself is a stuctured dance, yes there is more room for creativity i zouk than most other styles, but this does not mean, we let go of all structures and techniques and just do something.
– teaching: most teachers are on a high, they travel around celebrating a star status, offering a dream and the illusion you can achieve that level in a few workshops at a congress. sorry, no, these quick fixes and shortcuts don’t exist. in stead of offering complex combinations, teachers should offer techniques and basics, like in tango and west coast swing.
– teaching, many teachers step in front of a group, shout “do like me” and that is that. teachers should train themselves in didactics and psychology, and also in culture. the way ppl learn is often very different from Brazil (“don’t question anything, just a hierarchal copy-me-pasing-on-system”).
having said that, i can say that no other style makes me as happy as zouk!
kisses remy, chairman of IZD-IZFM.
In any dance there are definitely areas for improvement!
I must say that for the teachers that I have learned from (and the way I teach myself), safety has always been emphasized and I haven’t encountered the stars that give the illusion of not needing to work on things. 🙂
In the scene I am in there are primarily 2 big players in a relatively small scene. One of the players is selective as to who belongs or fits in the scene and would just remove people from the scene whom are deemed bad fits. No reason and no warning
There is a superficial niceness but I find that there can be something besides niceness in the scene top down. To me it’s quiet upsetting and unfortunate. My passion was Zouk and now it is gone.
I keep coming back to read this article again and again and I’m always touched by your deeply insightful and perfectly expressed thoughts. Thank you Laura, I love your work!
I love your article, I’m also a zoukaholic 🙂 I have danced my whole life; jazz, contemporary dance, ballet, salsa and tango, and I soo agree on that zouk is the dance where I can ‘flow’ the most. The high is incredible when dancing with someone that leads you well, but also give you space to be creative AND the music is taking you to cloud nine. I wish for the whole world to discover this dance, and yes it does takes some practice and patience to learn it, but the reward is so worth it 🙂
Think about it, we are experiencing a great cocktail of serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine, endorphins and probably even more feel-good hormones. Singing, dancing and playing music is connecting you with your soul <3
Zouk never appealed to me. We’ve been having different people trying very hard to promote it in my area and now after more than 5 years, Zouk never gained any traction.
To be blunt, Zouk movements seem very unnatural, affected, contrived, and artificial to me.
You do you, bud 🙂